Barbara Ntambirweki

Barbara Ntambirweki is a Ugandan lawyer and Researcher working with ETC Group under the African Technology Assessment Platform. She is passionate about promoting technology justice within food systems in Africa, particularly with regard to the emerging developments in modern biotechnology and the digitalization of food and agriculture. Currently coordinating the African Working Group on Digitalization of Food and Agriculture to raise the collective voice of civil society organizations in Africa on the governance of digital agriculture on the continent. Prior to this role, she was a Research Fellow with Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) involved in research and policy advocacy on the regulation of genetic engineering in Uganda. Barbara is also a lecturer at the Uganda Pentecostal University where she teaches Intellectual Property Law.

Project title: Strengthening the Role of African Civil Society in Interrogating Digitalization of Food and Agriculture

Project description: The impact of digitalization on the food system is a growing issue of concern across Africa.  Digitalization of agriculture has been portrayed by governments and agribusiness as a driving force accelerating agricultural transformation. In Africa, our food systems have been no exception to this digital shift and hype; growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, consuming, and distributing food are all becoming subject to digital technologies. In face of these changes, there is an urgent need to convene strategic conversations towards interrogation and identifying principles on how governance of digitalization of agriculture -in the frame of food sovereignty - should occur. This project investigates how civil society leaders and movements can develop a critical collective voice on the governance of digitalization of agriculture in the frame of food sovereignty should occur or not.  It will attempt to develop a set of principles on governance within the context of food sovereignty.